The definition of percentile I usually see expects as a result the value from the supplied list below which P percent of values are found... which means the result must be from the set, not an interpolation between set elements. To get that, you can use a simpler function.
def percentile(N, P):
"""
Find the percentile of a list of values
@parameter N - A list of values. N must be sorted.
@parameter P - A float value from 0.0 to 1.0
@return - The percentile of the values.
"""
n = int(round(P * len(N) + 0.5))
return N[n-1]
# A = (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
# B = (15, 20, 35, 40, 50)
#
# print percentile(A, P=0.3)
# 4
# print percentile(A, P=0.8)
# 9
# print percentile(B, P=0.3)
# 20
# print percentile(B, P=0.8)
# 50
If you would rather get the value from the supplied list at or below which P percent of values are found, then use this simple modification:
def percentile(N, P):
n = int(round(P * len(N) + 0.5))
if n > 1:
return N[n-2]
else:
return N[0]
Or with the simplification suggested by @ijustlovemath:
def percentile(N, P):
n = max(int(round(P * len(N) + 0.5)), 2)
return N[n-2]